“Jesus took over the phrase ‘the Kingdom of God,’ but he changed its meaning. He refused entirely to be the kind of a Messiah that his contemporaries expected. Jesus made love the mark of sovereignty. Here we are left with no doubt as to Jesus’ meaning. The Kingdom of God will be a society in which men and women live as children of God should live. It will be a kingdom controlled by the law of love.”

A young student wrote those words for a course in seminary.  No one could have known when he wrote them that he would help move the world so much closer to fulfilling Christ’s vision of the law of love.  He became the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and called his entire life work “an experiment in love.”  He believed America had the greatest chance of becoming a model of the realm of God  of any nation in history because of its founding principles of democracy and equality and freedom for all.  He had that dream, and he gave his life to fulfill it.  He lived and died to extend the law of love to the kind of people Jesus always did, the most vulnerable, the oppressed and the outcast.

This Sunday we honor King’s vision and his work as a model for all Christians and all churches. We will read scriptures that show how he was fulfilling the vision and work of others before him going back thousands of years. Continue reading Upcoming Service Notes, January 15, 2017, Martin Luther King Jr. Sunday →

The Second of the 12 Steps of groups like Alcoholics Anonymous is this: “We came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.”  This Sunday is all about the epiphany of seeing that Higher Power made manifest  in nature and in our lives, and  especially in the transformational moment when Jesus came out of the River Jordan baptized by John, blessed by God and driven by the Holy Spirit to begin his ministry (Matthew 3:13-17).  The Higher Power is all about transforming our lives and our world to be more Spirit-filled and Spirit-led, to be more aligned with God’s realm of love and life and light, mercy and justice and peace.

The scriptures and music want to shake us and wake us to this truly amazing grace: we have access to this Higher Power! Isaiah says, “New things I now declare!”  (42:1-9) Psalm 29 describes the world-changing Power of God in a thunderstorm coming off of the Mediterranean Sea. We can be changed and be instruments of change in our world with the help of this Power. In fact, we are not fulfilling our calling and accepting the full gift that Christ offers us if we are not living as continually transformed and transforming people.   Continue reading Upcoming Service Notes: January 8, 2017, Baptism of Christ Sunday →

This Sunday falls in the middle of the twelve days of Christmas, but we will celebrate it as Epiphany (January  6th).  Epiphany was one of the most important and ancient church holy days, predating Christmas itself.  It has had other scriptures associated with it over the millenia, but we read the story of the Magi following the star to Jesus.  (Matthew 2:1-12)  The  point of all the scriptures and all the Sundays of the Epiphany Season is the recognition of the manifestation of God in Jesus and in the world (including in us).  We will hear Isaiah telling us to “see, and be radiant,” because when we truly see the light of God in the world and let it fill us, we ourselves shine.  (Isaiah 60:1-6)  What better way could there be to enter a new year?

We are blessed to have many manifestations of the Holy Spirit in this church that we can look to with joy.  We will name some of them and reflect on how we can see more.  Beauty opens our senses to the wondrous, transcendent presence of the creative force of love and life and light that we name God.  We will hear and sing some beautiful music including three hymns and a little bonus (We Three Kings, What Child Is This, and What Star Is This, plus one verse of O Little Town of Bethlehem).  The choir will sing the Bach harmonized chorale, “O Morning Star, How Fair and Bright” and a contemporary spiritual carol, “Jesus, The Light of the World.”  John will play pieces by Murschhauser, Dandrieu and Pachelbel.

Below are two very different treats for the ear and soul.  The first is a recording of the short and beautiful Pachelbel piece that John will play.  The second is the amazing choir of the Alfred Street Baptist Church in Alexandria, Virginia, one of the oldest African American congregations in the country, singing “Jesus, the Light of the World.”